professions

A profession is remunerative work, undertaken for the general good over the bulk of the individual's productive life, that requires such commitment for the development of requisite ability and judgment. Income is necessary to remove distraction, and thus must be stable and ample, but never large or an enticement. Market-driven income practices eat away professionalism. For example, I am overpaid, both as a matter of fact, and as matter of impedance to professional development. The market more frequently underpays, though, and this is no better: a professional does not grow from a forager's diet. The conviction the market wreaks is that what I do is, after all, a job, not more. That is true, but it is a useless truth that displaces a vitally useful lie. To say that mud is water and dirt does no harm. But to say that an illustration is paper and ink, is harmful truth telling. The wisdom to work with truth and falsehood, neither for their own sake, nor by mechanical sorting, nor with a loss to truthful orientation -- this is the sport of a great soul, and in minute popular dilutions, the tincture that distinguishes professions from jobs.